Survivor

The scribbling of a quill on paper was becoming something his mind tuned out almost automatically. It was about damn time; he’d spent so many hours listening to Snape mark away on various assignments during his investigation that he was actually kind of insulted that it took so long. Unlike his time spent looking over Snape’s shoulder, however, he found himself receiving a desperate sort of comfort while sitting in this room with Quirrell.

It’d been a week since his professor offered to save him from his hopeless situation. The Slytherin common room, in the same amount of time, had become something more akin to a prison than a home. Harry never really considered it to be a home, not really, but he was shocked to have found out that he did look at it as a place of relative safety. Like so many things lately, he hadn’t been aware of just how important that was until he’d lost it.

The openness of the room and the way it stared out into the black lake, ironically enough, eventually made him feel as though he were free. What triggered his very real fear of being trapped at first became a source of comfort for him. It was a shame that the bastards living with him made him feel constricted every damn time he set foot in the place.

Harry’s paranoia had slowly been coming back as more things went wrong throughout the year, but it was on full throttle ever since his own housemates almost had him murdered by his own relative. Everyone started looking like an enemy to him, and his once closest ally being stuck in a medical coma while they attempted to unshatter her legs meant that he had nobody he could intrinsically trust standing beside him. All he could feel were the eyes watching him, and he became obsessed with things that he hadn’t been since he’d left the muggle world.

He needed to know everything going on at every moment of every day.

It was one of the things that kept him running at the Dursleys. He knew where his family was down to when his slimy uncle took a fucking shit, and it was in his knowledge that he found a sense of control in the midst of chaos and uncertainty. Those old habits became the norm over the last seven days at Hogwarts. He and Jason were finding out how every single Slytherin lived in the castle. He wanted to know their names, their friends, their crushes, their classes. He wanted to know when they usually ate their midday snack, when they went to the library to study for their tests, and when they fancied hanging around by the fire in their common room.

It was impossible to be caught unaware when everything the people did around him were within the confines of what he knew. Until he collected all of that information, though, he couldn’t enter his common room without feeling uncomfortable. The sensation wasn’t far from that of spiders crawling across his skin, and he had an ample amount of experience with such a feeling to properly compare the two. 

That was why he needed what his professor offered. Just as he once became too powerful for his relatives to imprison him, so too did he wish to become too powerful for his classmates to threaten him or for his friends to get hurt as he watched. If he could just be better…

“It’s very hard to properly grade papers, Mister Potter, when I can hear you thinking from across the room.” Quirrell placed his quill onto his desk and looked up at Harry with a smirk. 

“Sorry, sir.” His eyes quickly flicked to the ground and away from his professor’s piercing stare. 

“For someone so subdued and controlled, your emotions are louder than men in a riot.” Quirrell chuckled at the boy’s attempt to avoid making eye contact with him. “All one has to do is have the ears to hear them.”

Damn it…

He forced himself to refrain from making a face at the comment. With the stranger gone, the impenetrable Occlumency he’d once possessed was left in tatters. On his own, he could just manage to keep his annoyingly eager magic wrapped around himself. Internalizing that magic was the next step, and it was impossible for him. All a Legilimens had to do was peer into the fabric of his constricted magic to see the feelings he wished to conceal. His incompetence was infuriating before, but it was heartbreakingly devastating when he was helpless before the only person left who could possibly help him. 

“Tell me what causes you such turmoil.”

Knowing that it was pretty much impossible to hide things from his professor if the man wished to claim it from him, he gathered as much of his pride as possible and tried to play off his eyes’ nervous wandering as nothing more than a curious examination of Quirrell’s bookshelf.

It didn’t fool either of them.

“The Slytherins who attacked me are watching; I know it. I don’t know who they are, but I can feel them every time I’m around my housemates.”

“I can imagine,” the man said, seemingly humoring him more than attempting any sort of empathy. “I’ll have to apologize for not discovering their identities. By the time I arrived, they were gone. If they were watching you, it was through a spell they canceled before I could sense it. Never let it be said that Slytherins don’t know how to carry out a proper scheme.”

Harry gave a jerky nod, fighting a scowl at the man’s words. He couldn’t tell if Quirrell was lying, and it was beginning to infuriate him. Deception was something that just came to him. He could spin tales and manipulations like a spider could spin a web, and there were scarce few he’d met through his admittedly short life who could properly pull one over on him. This man made it look effortless. 

Not a fucking buzz, not a single hint. He felt as though he were guessing, shooting in the dark as one of the two men his partner seemed to respect danced circles around him. Harry was so far out of his depths here, and he knew it just as much as he believed he had no other choice. What he could gain from this was more than worth tempting fate with the one playing games against Albus Dumbledore. 

“Your magic has been coming back, correct?” Quirrell asked him. “Has it recovered?”

“Almost all the way; Madam Pomfrey told me.” 

“And have you read the book I gave you?” 

“... I did.”

“What did you think of it?” Quirrell’s eyes were practically glowing with intrigue.

The book in question was one that his professor gave to him the day after he’d accepted the man’s offer. It was a manual of sorts. It covered the topic of stances, displaying and describing a decent few with the aid of pictures and anecdotes from people deemed masters at the craft of dueling. 

“I think the book I had to buy for your class was garbage."

Quirrell’s dangerous smile was sharp enough to cut steel as he dipped his head in agreement. “The ministry approves the books we use at Hogwarts. Most students leave here thinking that the Ministry’s ‘combat accepted stance’ is the only one. Strange, isn’t it?”

Harry wasn’t surprised, especially considering he'd thought the exact same thing until he read the book Quirrell personally handed to him. The stance taught to every first-year student was reminiscent of a classical fencing stance, at least according to Quirrell's book. It was a stance that involved the body facing away from the opponent, the wand arm extended forward as if brandishing a blade, and the other arm extended in the opposite direction. The stance favored light, fast, and fleeting attacks that were commonly used by very novice fighters. Stunning spells, disarming spells, and basic shields were staples of the stance. Apparently, that was the stance used by the vast majority of Britain’s magical community, and it was the only one taught in the Hogwarts curriculum. If someone learned a different stance, it was through some other channel.

Unfortunately, it was completely unsuitable to people who weren’t fighting like the Ministry advertised. That meant it was pretty much useless to him, and it was but one example of why people like him were destined to fail by taking the standardized approach. That fact was one of the main criticisms Quirrell’s book pointed out for the basic stance, and it gave alternatives for people who needed something more . There was still a big problem though.

“But I’m confused why I read the whole book, Professor,” Harry admitted, and he saw the way Quirrell shifted in his seat to sit in a more receptive, anticipatory manner. “All of the stances in it were still ones that used spellwork you told me I can’t do. How is any of this going to help me get stronger?”

“There’s unorthodox dueling, Mister Potter, and then there’s you,” Quirrell said, being nothing but frank with the boy he'd decided to teach. “Your magic is completely skewed. The type of spellwork most commonly used in a duel is unavailable to you, and the magic you excel at is extremely complex and rarely used by novice and intermediate duelists. Even transfiguration masters don’t duel without curses, but you will have to. Every style you study, every champion duelist you will ever watch, isn’t going to fit your needs, not unless you’re looking at someone stilted toward the same magic you favor or something made directly by them. For now, you will need to study what you can and trust me to make it relevant to you. Once you become more experienced, you can begin adapting things on your own.”

Swallowing the feeling that came with standing before a seemingly unscalable mountain, he focused on nothing but the task on hand and how he was going to accomplish it. “If everything I’m learning is so unique and takes so much time to learn, how am I supposed to get better than all of the people who can learn the easy way?”

“You work harder, and you practice more, Potter."

His spite momentarily cowled by his teacher’s harsh tone and hopeful promises, Harry gave a nod. It was then that Quirrell stood from his chair and walked over to the door. When he turned the handle, he glanced back at him and raised a single eyebrow.

“You’ve recovered enough of your magic to use it safely, haven’t you? Are you coming to learn or not?”

Apprehension and years of doubt almost crushed him as he stood up. If he were honest, it was only the promise of someone Harry knew to be unbelievably powerful that allowed him to fight against the weight. To be strong by his own merits, without the beast, without the stranger. He didn’t know if it was possible, didn’t think it was possible. The very chance of it, though, was too important to ignore.

So he followed.

Through the castle, they walked in silence. Harry initially wondered where they were going, but his answer quickly came in the form of Professor Quirrell leading him into the dungeons. He thought their destination might’ve been somewhere close to the Slytherin common room, but they kept surprisingly far away from that area of the castle. Hogwarts was a place that begged someone to lose themselves in it, and no area of the castle more embodied that than the dungeons. Snape’s class was down here, and so was the Slytherin common room, but the underground network of the castle went for God only knew how far, especially when secret passages were considered. 

Eventually, they came to a stop in front of an old, waterlogged door. The man, much to Harry’s surprise, seemed almost sentimental as he stared at it. After a moment’s pause, Quirrell waved his open palm across the door, and a series of carvings slowly became visible. They spanned across the entirety of the wooden surface, and Harry wasn’t sure that he recognized anything on it. Most likely, that meant it was done in some kind of language instead of the type he’d been experimenting with. 

Drawing his wand, Quirrell pointed it at the door, and the runes flashed violently before fading back into the wood. The moment they were completely lost again, it swung open to reveal a decently large, completely barren room. Quirrell walked in first, and Harry dutifully followed. As they approached the center of the room, the man spread his arms, wand in hand, and gave Harry a smile.

“Welcome, Mister Potter, to the room I claimed as my training ground back in my second year. I used it all the way to my fifth, and it is where you will begin your true growth as a wizard too.”

Looking around, Harry saw that this room wasn’t quite as barren as he’d originally thought. It was true that there wasn’t anything in it. Instead, its value and sense of personality was found literally engraved in the room itself. All around him were signs of spellwork, from lines gouged in crisscross patterns against a specific corner of the stone wall to the chunky remains of a particular section of wall that seemed to have been blown to bits. From the floors to the ceiling, signs of blood, sweat, and tears covered every inch of it. For a moment, he was tempted to use Legilimency, just to see what a room so completely saturated with dedication felt like to his magic. 

But no… not now… 

Now, Harry could do little more but hope that he gained as much from his time here as his professor had. “What are we going to do, sir?”

Professor Quirrell’s contrite smile seemed just a tad off putting. He wasn’t sure, for a second, if he was simply feeling weird in the exclusive, intense presence of someone so much stronger than him in the face of an approaching lesson or if it was actually something to do with the man himself. The look put him on edge, but it was so convincing that he almost bought it until his wand practically screamed at him from its home in his pocket. 

His natural reflexes were the only reason he was able to lean himself out of the way of a spell that whizzed past his tilted midsection. His wide eyes stared at his professor as he was forced to move once again. The man’s odd grin turned slightly manic as he threw a third spell and followed it quickly with another. 

It was obvious that the man was holding back, but he couldn’t help but feel as though he were back with Daphne, helplessly fighting an unstoppable opponent as his friend slowly bled out behind him. Further, without an ounce of reprieve, he was forced onto his back foot. His desperation brought out the beast, and his hasty dodges became more dynamic and fluid with his sharpening senses and instincts. 

“Good, Harry, bring out your power!” Quirrell exclaimed as he tossed a few more spells.

The further he was pushed, the harder he pushed back, and the more his inner animal poured into his features. He was starting to change, becoming more aggressive by the second as he was continuously shown how very mismatched this fight really was. That drift toward the zouwu was the reason he eventually got clipped on the shoulder, causing a sharp, stinging sensation where it hit. 

His diamond pupils contracted to slits as he growled at the man. 

“You’re falling too far into the transformation!” Quirrell instructed him as he continued to hold the line with his purposefully slow and mostly harmless spellwork. “Your form was a gift for your sacrifice, but the zouwu is only a single aspect of yourself. You must find the balance! What can you bring to the table!? Work together with your form instead of relying on it!”

Forcing himself to acknowledge that this wasn’t like his desperate fight against the strange wizard in the forest, he calmed himself down and pulled the beast back enough to keep his mind present and working. The zouwu wasn’t built to dodge like a human, and it certainly wasn’t used to being wary of some petty mage. When he turned too deeply into his form, the increase in his senses and reflexes were equivalently matched by the leaking of such emotions.

That was why using the zouwu was sometimes detrimental to him. Brutality and overwhelming power only worked if those factors were what he needed to accomplish his goal. Against a wizard with so much raw experience and unthinkable levels of magical prowess, trying to fight him with the zouwu’s natural proclivities only played into Quirrell’s hands. 

Unfortunately, drawing less from the zouwu meant he had to rely on his own power more, and that was something he didn’t have. The zouwu was his strength. If he didn’t delve into the beast, then he had nowhere else to turn. He didn’t have the ability to respond to Quirrell’s spells without it, and that was why he quickly found himself knocked unconscious by a direct hit to the gut. 

For five days, it continued.

Hours on end, time and time again, the same exact thing happened. He’d walk into Quirrell’s office, the man would nod, the two of them would go to Quirrell’s old training room, and Harry would get lashed until the man deemed it to have been enough. Every single time, his resistance was futile, and it didn’t get even an ounce better. In fact, each subsequent spar only got worse.

Harry felt as if he were stuck between two useless extremes, and Quirrell was picking him apart while he sat in the middle. He was on his fiftieth conjured plank of wood, and Quirrell was demolishing him with a patient, anticipatory steel behind his eyes, like the man expected him to find something, some kind of answer. Well, he was honestly sorry to disappoint the man, but he wasn’t finding shit.

Today, the fifth day of his continuous failures, something changed. He could tell the moment he entered Quirrell’s office; the man was done waiting. For a brief, terrifying moment, Harry thought his professor had given up on him. It wouldn’t have been the first time, nor did Harry expect it to be the last. Relief was all he felt when the man stood from his chair and led their journey to the training room.

The fight was no longer friendly. 

The days of stinging and stunning him were over, it seemed, because the first spell thrown at him sent Harry spinning across the room and into the stone wall behind him. The zouwu prickled beneath his skin as he fell to the floor, his back aching something fierce . It wanted to come out so badly that it burned his muscles and melted his flesh. Lightning crackled around his hands against his will, subtly dancing around the wand he held uselessly in his fingers. 

Quirrell's chuckle echoed around the room. “The zouwu wants to fight me, boy… Do you?”

The way Quirrell said that word doused his searing body in ice-cold water. Multiple instances of Vernon berating him with that fucking name flashed through his head, and it made him bear his teeth as he seethed. He knew that turning into the zouwu was a bad idea in the long run, but he was far beyond caring at this point. He just wanted to make the man hurt.

“One reminder of your past, and you’re already falling into the zouwu’s warm embrace? Pathetic!” Quirrell sneered as orange fur began to sprout across Harry’s skin. “No wonder your magic is so stilted!”

The man’s words cut him like a surgeon's scalpel, and he bit his cheek hard enough to taste blood as his fist crashed against the ground, blowing some of it to pieces with the lightning flowing through him.

God damn it!

Out of sheer force of will and unbearable levels of spite, he forced the fur back into his body. He wanted to fight, but he didn’t know what else he was meant to fucking do! He didn’t have another option. Power wasn’t something he possessed; that was why the zouwu came to be in the first place!

A spell of glowing magenta flew at him, and he pushed himself out of the way. Unfortunately, he only stepped into the path of a second attack. His wand was what responded, blocking it with a spell he didn’t know without even a modicum of input from himself. Instead of relieving him like it usually did, it just pissed him off, and it made Quirrell burst out into mocking laughter from across the room.

“You’re so worthless that your own wand is forced to defend you all on its own! Can you do nothing yourself!?”

Whispering the incantation under his breath, Harry reached out to the stones his fist had broken off from the floor, and he chucked one of them at his professor with the levitation charm. Quirrell’s eyes flashed with horrifying rage, and he turned the stone to wisps of smoke with a thought . Magic swirled around the man with such intensity that it brought Harry to his knees as little more than a measly side effect of its presence. 

“Why are you using charms, Potter!? You’re built for transfiguration. Just use it already!”

“HOW!?”

His lips morphing into a snarl, Quirrell slashed his wand across his chest and sent Harry crashing into the wall about ten meters off to the side. The boy groaned as he hit the stone and slumped against the floor, but his teacher wasn’t done. With his unarmed hand, he reached out and lifted Harry into the air with nothing but his own magic, no focus included. The rage was like a hurricane in the boy’s eyes, but he wasn’t using it!

And he knew why…

“Are you entirely useless?” Voldemort threateningly questioned, his glare sharpening until it was comparable to a razorblade.

“NO!” Potter shouted, but it was hard to tell if it sounded more desperate or angry.

Like a switch, the man went from absolutely irate to disturbingly calm. If Harry didn’t know any better, he’d almost say the man seemed morose.

“Oh, but you are, Harry,” Voldemort whispered softly, kindly, and Harry looked for all the world like his words had just killed him. “It has nothing to do with your ability though. You’re useless because you believe you have no use.”

“... What?”

“I can see it in your eyes,” He said to his young, broken student. “I can see the way you doubt. You put on such a convincing act, but I know the way you assault yourself when it really matters. Look at what they’ve done to you, Harry! The ability to create breathes through you, and they’ve convinced you that you’re only worth conjuring a plank of wood!?" 

Harry’s insides felt like they were going to explode. He wanted to shake his head and deny it, vehemently express how stupid and wrong the man was. He escaped the Dursleys! He made his uncle cower before him, made the man beg! So why!?

Why did it feel like he was still stuck in his fucking cupboard!?

“You’re letting them win,” Voldemort whispered, his voice echoing across the stone walls despite his gentle tone. “and it isn’t because they hurt you; it’s because they’ve managed to make you convince yourself that you’re worthless for them! Prove them wrong, Harry! Prove yourself wrong and make something!”

Harry’s heart was pounding in his chest so loudly that he thought his ears could actually hear its rhythm. The turmoil inside of him exploded like an erupting volcano was smashed into his gut. He wanted to puke, cry, and laugh all at the same time, and it was Quirrell’s words that broke the dam. He didn’t know how to handle the things going on in his head, nobody had ever taught him how, so he released it into the world instead. 

And fire sparked to life on the tip of his wand.

Quirrell’s frown turned into a full blown, maniacal grin as a gout of flame larger than the boy himself barreled at him from across the room. It charred the floors worse than they already were, blackening them until the stone was almost invisible beneath the residue. The boy came by it honestly; his mother always had been a menace with her little flames. He could’ve dodged, but he wouldn’t have done it if there was an eternity and a half to move. Instead, he constructed a shield and took it head on, relishing in the power created by his student.

This was what he lived for!

The flames washed across his magical barrier, heating him to an uncomfortable degree as he weathered the attack, and he’d never felt better. Watching the chains break, seeing the beginning of what was only the most glorious of rebirths, it was everything he wanted and more. He stood against the attack, imploring the boy to release as much as he could, and he marveled at the potential he witnessed. 

As the fire slowly petered out, Voldemort began to drop his shield, and he slowly lowered the boy to the ground with his other hand. Absolutely exhausted and now without his magic’s support, the boy began to fall forward. In a flash, Voldemort was across the room, planting his hands on Harry’s shoulders to help hold him up.

His student was staring blankly at his lightly smoking wand, shocked beyond comprehension at the power he’d manifested. His promise was the start of a revolution, but this moment, when power was actually handled, that was the awakening. Slowly, the boy dragged his eyes up from his wand to see Voldemort’s smiling face.

“Now that’s what I call a spell, Potter,” was the only thing he could say to such a beautifully constructed piece of magic.

A raw, almost disbelieving burst of laughter left the boy’s mouth at his compliment. It took Harry a good few seconds to collect himself after such a monumental event, and his eyes were lit with determination and greed-filled hope as he looked into his teacher’s eyes.

“What’s next, sir?”

Oh, the boy had no idea.